Search the Community

Hi VFRD folks, long time no post, you probably might remember me from such post as, "What did you do to your VFR Today?", the "VFRD Golden State Rides", the numerous "Palomar-Borrego Springs" and "Malibu Ride" posts and probably the most watched, "New 5th/6th/8th gen performance header now in production in USA post". Well, sorry for the lack of anything substantial or interesting in such a long time but somehow life got in the way of a lot of things, fun rides being part of them. So what's being going on during this hiatus, well apart from the pandemic? Really not much, at least in terms of rides go. I sort of took a break from riding public roads in favor of doing some track time. I was able to get onboard with the California Superbike School's corner working group. In exchange of my time monitoring and reporting on student riders, I got a load of track time as compensation, how cool is that? Unfortunately, on my last session with them, 6/2020, I ended up crashing my 5 Gen at about 100MPH! Last look at my speedometer coming out of turn 9, I saw 110MPH, then saw the ground, the sky, the ground, the sky, the ground, the sky...you get the idea. Ended up with some bruising, tore up gear, a dislocated pinky and two fractured vertebrae (Ouch!) All in all, it was more detrimental to my bike than me but the cost of Dr. visits still seems to be lingering on but the bike and I are all healed up and doing well now. Since it took a bit of time to heal and restore the bike, I decided to just hold off the fun riding and work on all three of my bikes. The 5 Gen was first, then my Ducati 900SS/SP. The latter was kind of leaking oil out of the cylinder heads, so a top end rebuild was in order. That went well and even had a few friends come over and let a hand, if not a beer. So she's now looking and riding as good as ever. Then, had to address the real issue, my 6 Gen. She has given me many miles, a little over 106k to be more precise but she was doing something a bit more sinister than the Duc. She was losing coolant and not in the typical way of leaving some here and there any time she was parked, she was burning it! Yeah, somehow, there was coolant disappearing and no trace of it being expelled externally. So, decision time, rebuild like I did the Duc or just swap in another motor that doesn't have a leak???? Well, decision was made, find a 5 Gen engine and put that in instead of a 6 Gen motor...Hmm, good idea. Why this instead of another 6 Gen motor. Well considering it was time to do a rebuild of the top end, I also figured it was getting near time to also change out the cam chains, as the number of miles would suggest they were getting long in the tooth and there is only so much the tensioner would take up as slack. No such issue with a 5 Gen motor, got to love those gear driven cams! Well, I was lucky and found a gentleman on a Facebook forum looking for someone who wanted to buy a 5 Gen. Me, me, me, I PM'd him and spoke with him over the phone. Turns out he was in Northern California only a few hours’ drive for me, so deal was made. I was able to secure my friends van and he and I drove up to a little town just outside Stockton, where met up, exchanged money for vehicle and away home we went. Since I was mainly in it for the engine and had a few friends who wanted or needed some 5 Gen parts, I was able to extract the engine and lose some of the extra bits to those in need. So, took some time, figured out what parts and pieces I was going to need from Honda, like O-rings, gaskets, seals, etc. and that's where this pandemic really intervened! Took a long time to get some parts and even some orders got cancelled because the dealer only holds the order for so long and will cancel the order if they don't get the parts in that time frame. Oh well, eventually all the stuff I ordered came in but took a lot longer than I was expecting. So what was the plan entirely, remove the 6 Gen engine, replace with 5 Gen engine and finally install our infamous "WyLD" headers! Along with that, replace some seals and bearings that probably, if not for grins, should be refreshed with new. So anytime I had no family or work obligations I went at it. Took my time with this beauty as she is my main "Squeeze", my commuter, tourer and yes, even my track lady once in a while, so that's what I did. So after several months and many hours, I completed my mission. A beauty who not only looks lovely but runs very well and not only has a lovely voice but a little whine to go along with it! Standby there will be more to come...